UPCOMING EVENT June 7th|The 21st Century Lawyer CLE

The Seattle Legal Innovation and Technology Meetup Group is delivering a terrific event for June. (Sound Immigration is the CLE sponsor). We’re talking hackers (the good kind), AI, design thinking for law, and Kanban. Plus, there’ll be adult beverages and networking afterward at Avvo’s new HQ in the area they like to call south-South Lake Union. Beyond the awesome topics, CLE credit (3 credits pending) will be available for attorneys but we promise it won’t be boring! CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

Check out the Panels below!!

In an increasingly fast-paced world, lawyers and law need not only to adapt but to adapt quickly and often. Beyond that they need curiosity, openness to new ideas, and a healthy dose of technophilia. Believe it or not these were common characteristics among the early hackers. Not the “steal your identity and head off to the French Rivera” hackers but the original hackers who, it turns out, were model train enthusiasts at MIT. This presentation will discuss the origin of hackers and hacker culture and explain how these characteristics can help lawyers build effective robust legal practices in the new economy.

Busyness is the plague of Lawyerdom. Yet while lawyers claim busyness as a merit badge, our clients don’t care if we’re busy – only if we’re productive. Fortunately there is an entire professional discipline devoted to the art and science of productivity, and that’s the field of project management. This presentation will offer suggestions about how lawyers can improve their effectiveness – and reduce the mental clutter of busyness – by borrowing Agile project management systems from the technology sector.

With its roots in the Toyota manufacturing revolution in Japan, the heart of Agile project management is a system of visualizing work in production. Called a kanban board, this system helps knowledge workers identify and prioritize actionable work, as well as identify the “bottleneck” in their workflow.

This presentation will cover how lawyers can implement Agile principles and kanban workflows in their practices. Whether you run a transactional or litigation-focused practice, Agile can help you gain a new clarity and focus with your case load. Best of all, the tools for implementing kanban are either free or virtually free. Check out Agile and see if there is something you can borrow for your own practice.

About the Author

Miguel Willis is a second year law student at Seattle University School of Law. Miguel founded and organized the first Social Justice Hackathon in Seattle, WA, bringing together law students, lawyers, non-profit organizations, and software developers to crank out apps and programs that help increase access to legal services.

About this Blog

The Innovative Law Student (ILS) blog covers all aspects of innovations in the legal industry and legal education, topics ranging from tech justice to virtual reality, in thought-provoking and insightful posts catered for a law student audience. The ILS blog is a group forum to which many ILS team members contribute. Outside contributions are welcome. The blog is edited by Miguel Willis.